This is the “Cold Moon” of Feb 24, 2024. It is also a “mini moon” because it is almost as far away from Earth as it can be, making it about 10% smaller. You’d never notice that with your naked eye though. It’s still very bright in the night sky. And it was cold last night – 12F (-11C) when I took this image with a ZWO Seestar S50 “Smart Telescope.”
It did it on a whim so I wasn’t set up very well, but the hardest part was finding a spot that I could level the telescope on top of my car, which was still warm from me coming home from an evening event. As a result, by the time I ended up getting three shots of the Moon through the telescope, my phone battery died and I was forced to pack it up.
No worries though – my hands were freezing and I was ready for some heated mattress pad!
This is one of three very similar images captured by the Seestar, edited slightly to crop and sharpen things a little bit. For a small telescope, the Seestar really is great for just taking a “snapshot” of something in the Cosmos without setting up an entire imaging telescope rig to do it. What a great little Time Machine!